


short road, long road, they all lead to hell

by jesseofthenorth



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Winter Soldier (Comics)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Mostly hurt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-22
Updated: 2015-03-22
Packaged: 2018-03-19 03:45:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3595113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jesseofthenorth/pseuds/jesseofthenorth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve tries to help. He can't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	short road, long road, they all lead to hell

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the towerparty prompt "The road to hell is paved with good intentions"  
> So of course I thought of Bucky Barnes because the man knows that road well.
> 
> Fair warning: no happy endings here

“You should have put a bullet in my head. It would have been kinder” Bucky told him, voice full of gravel and pain and remorse.  
Steve looked at Bucky where he sat in the dark, shaking and sweating his way up from another nightmare and Steve wasn’t sure he could argue. Maybe it would have been a mercy, but it was too late.  
All Steve could do was bear witness to the guilt; however misplaced Steve thought it was.  
“You should have let me die” Bucky whispered and Steve couldn’t think of a damned thing to say.

****  
“I was so sure I was doing the right thing, bringing him here, giving him a chance. Why does it feel like the worst thing I could have done?”

“Steve” it was just one word but it carried all the empathy Sam could muster.

“No. I know. It’s not that bad” Steve tried to say.  
“Don’t say it!” Sam demanded. “Don’t you dare say it’s not that bad! It fucking sucks. And we all know it does. But he’s here. And he’s alive. So we’ll do what we have to. Help him find his way back”

“I know you’re right, Sam. I’m just tired and I don’t know what else to do.” Steve plastered on a smile meant to reassure. All it did was make Sam worry more.

****  
Steve didn’t even bother with an alarm clock anymore. Not because he’d gotten lazy or lost the habit of rising early. It was just that he was always up early now, nursing his second cup of coffee by the time his damned alarm went off. He got up so many times every night that at a certain juncture there wasn’t much point in going back to bed, no time left to get any real sleep. He stopped setting the alarm because he just wound up going back to his room to shut the damned thing off, trying not to kill himself in his haste to shut up the blaring before it woke Bucky after he finally got back to his restless sleep.  
So Steve didn’t even set it, hoping it would mean a few uninterrupted hours of rest, for Bucky at least. God knew Buck needed some peace.  
It never worked, though. It took Steve 30 minutes to get through that second cup of coffee. He hardly ever made it all the way through before Bucky shouted himself awake again or just gave up entirely and came to find coffee of his own.

****  
“What have I done? My god what did I do? All those people, Steve” Bucky moaned hot face pressed into Steve’s shoulder, clutching at Steve’s back.  
He knew it was pointless, that Bucky didn’t hear him or didn’t believe it, but Steve told him anyway “It wasn’t your fault Buck. It wasn’t you.” Bucky didn’t argue anymore just shuddered and sweated his way back to unconsciousness.  
Every night was the same.

****  
“I don’t know what to do anymore. Maybe there’s nothing I can do. I have to try though.”

Sam agreed with him, for all the good it would do. The only one who could save Bucky is Bucky, no matter how much Steve Rogers wanted otherwise. He told Steve so enough times you’d have thought it would sink in.

Steve went home and locked all the knives. He didn’t own a gun, and he was pretty certain Bucky hadn’t brought one with him when he came. Mostly certain.

He constantly felt the need to do… something, could not stand to watch while Bucky sank further and further. If he only stood by and watched he knew one day he would be watching while his oldest friend completely self-destructed, blown apart by guilt and the damage inflicted on him.  
It would have been so much easier if there had been a single thing, just one thing, he could do to make anything better.

****  
Bucky hadn’t said anything in days. Not that he had much to say before. On any given day he might have said a dozen words from sun up to sun down.  
Then one day he didn’t make a single sound. It took the entire day for Steve to notice. It was so quiet in their apartment it set Steve’s teeth on edge. Steve tried to talk, to fill up that silence. Asked questions and tried to engage him in some way, Bucky just shook his head and went back to his room.  
The loss of those dozen or so words left a massive void in their wake. It was replaced by a tension that filled every room. Steve was wound so tightly he felt like he was going to crack wide open, waiting for something to happen. Vigilant, suddenly, like he hadn’t been since the war. Waiting for a bomb to drop.  
He fell asleep over his second cup of coffee, still waiting, tension breeding a bone-deep exhaustion.  
When Steve woke the sun was high and he felt mostly rested. He sat up stretching the kink out of his back from sleeping in such a stupid place, rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. It took a moment to realize that the apartment is completely quiet and utterly still. Empty.  
He felt his heart jump and instantly Steve was on his feet running to Bucky’s room. He was expecting the worst, all the ugly scenes playing out in his mind at super speed as he rushed down the short hallway and slammed the door open.  
There was nothing to see. Everything in perfect order, the bed perfectly made, blankets perfectly tight, nothing out of place or missing, except Bucky. It looked as if he was never there, save for a single piece of paper laying perfectly centered in the middle of the pillow.

“Steve  
I know you mean well, I know you’re trying to do the right thing, but there’s no salvation for me. Not here anyway. You can’t save everyone Steve. Person has to want to be saved.  
Sorry”  
Steve was unsure what sort of farewell this was, but it was definitely a goodbye.  
Steve looked around again, opening drawers and snooping in the closet, hoping for some clue. Every single thing Steve bought to make Bucky comfortable was right where it was yesterday. The only things missing were a change of clothes and the saints medals Bucky never even looked at far as Steve knew. Steve had found them; the very ones Bucky’s own mother had given him, found by chance in the hoard of a collector. Returned when Steve had asked and left untouched on the bureau ever since.  
Where ever Bucky had gone St Jude and St Christopher had gone with him.


End file.
